Q: Can love also be ego-fulfilling?
A: Yes – when it arises from the intellect. In fact, most people are either exploiting or being exploited in a relationship. Ego is the whole basis of what we nowadays call a love-hate relationship. Most 'love' relationships end up this way because your partner will, at some point, refuse (or be unable) to meet the demands of your ego.
All the complaints you hear from people who claim to be in love point to a hurt ego, 'she never listens; he doesn't respect me; she doesn't understand my needs', etc., etc. are nothing but the complaints of a bruised ego.
Remember this: the ego thrives on conflict. Conflict provides the sense of separateness, the sense of 'me versus him/ her/ them' in which the ego feels strengthened. When you fall newly in love, you become automatically ready to surrender to the beauty of the experience. The ego is forced to take a back seat. But when the love comes from the intellect, it cannot sustain this 'high' for long. As soon as the relationship has become a familiar thing, the ego hits back, creating the situations of conflict necessary for its own survival.
Love-hate relationships are not confined to romantic attachments alone. Parents and children have a perennial ego tussle, with parents trying to live their lives a second time through their child, and the child's ego trying to rebel against this imposition upon its own freedom.
If you recognize these symptoms in your own relationship, it is time to realize that what you are experiencing is not love. As they say, true love has no opposite. It cannot turn into hatred, no matter what. What you are truly looking for is a better sense of self, which the other person's presence is temporarily fulfilling. Become aware!
Q: How do I know whether the love I am experiencing is real, or an illusion?
Love is always real, never an illusion. It only remains to be seen whether you have labeled the wrong emotion as love! Love is that which cannot be destroyed by anything - especially by reality! If it flies out of the window as soon as the honeymoon is over, it isn't love. If it diminishes because the partner has put on weight or forgets an anniversary, it certainly isn't love. If it continues to trust, even when the partner has been unworthy of trust, that is true love.
How do you know that what you are feeling for someone is truly love? Take this check.
Does the mere presence of the person fill you with joy, with peace, make you feel more centered in yourself? Do you enjoy sitting silently together, experiencing a communion that goes beyond words? Do you feel no fear of losing the person, no matter what?
Have challenges and anxieties helped your love to flower more fully? Above all, does loving this person come naturally to you - as if there were no other way?
This is the essence of love. In fact, love does not even know the fear that it might all be an illusion. So while you love, love as if it were the only truth. And if a moment comes sometime when you feel that it is an illusion, it simply means that love is now over and it is time for you to move on.
Q: If there is conflict in a relationship, is it better to keep trying or to move on?
Good question. Love is the most dangerous path there is! Only those with great courage dare tread this path. At any bend on this path, you have to be prepared for great joy, great pain, great beauty, great struggle, or great understanding.
Yes, there is bound to be conflict in every relationship, because every individual is unique, and no two personalities fit together so perfectly that no rough edges remain.
If there is conflict, don't sweep it under the carpet out of fear that it will destroy the relationship. On the contrary, ignoring it can do just that. Allow the conflict. Examine it. See what you can learn from it. Is it stemming from something in yourself that you are secretly unwilling to acknowledge? It is only in an intimate relationship that you discover yourself.
Your partner is like a foil reflecting your true nature. After all, who else dares point out your worst flaws with so much clarity? So examine the nature of your conflict. Also remember, in every relationship, there is a time to stay together and a time to move on. What kind of love do you share? Are you really, truly, surely in love? Do you relate deeply with each other, being to being?
Don't look for reasons and arguments; don't intellectualize the process simply turn the question inwards with complete honesty and trust. The answer will arise on its own.
If your answer is 'yes', then understand that the issues of conflict are mere ripples on the surface of your relationship. These are just situations created by the ego to counter the sense of 'no-self', of surrender, that comes with love. Work around these situations with love and care.
If the answer is 'no', then maybe it is time to move on. To remain in a relationship where there is no true relationship of being to being is sacrilege, unfair to you both. Love for you may be elsewhere. Don't search for it; just be open to the possibility. In the meantime, don't let the conflict destroy the relationship, destroy you both. Nobody deserves that. Accept that this is not the person for you, and move on without resentment or bitterness. Don't destroy your own capacity for loving. To become bitter will only cause you more suffering, and destroy your faith in love itself. And that is the most dangerous thing that can happen to anyone.
Q: Why do love and pain always go together?
All these questions point in the same direction. As long as there is a calculation, love is bound to result in pain. What we don't realize is that we usually turn to another person to make up for some lack, some incompleteness that we perceive in ourselves. As long as that person 'completes' us by bolstering our ego, the relationship is one of 'love'. But a time comes when the other person can no longer nurture and sustain our ego. When the ego is deprived of the other person's support, the suppressed feelings of inadequacy, insecurity and fear are unleashed again.
Be clear: relationships do not cause pain; they only bring out the repressed pain that is already in you. And as long as you look to an external source to complete and fulfill you, this will continue to happen.
Try to be self-sufficient, centered in your own being. Try to focus on what you can give in a relationship, rather than what you can get out of it. The first lesson of love is, not to ask for love. In one way or the other, we are all begging for attention, begging for love. When you are yourself a beggar for love, how can you give love to the other? Don't worry about whether your love is returned or not. Love is not a bargain; it is a gift. When love is an outpouring of one's being, it does not wait for the right person or the right place or time. It does not even care about whether the love is reciprocated or not. You are so full of love that you feel compelled to share the experience, like a rain cloud needs to share its rain, or a flower its fragrance. This kind of love blesses both, the one who gives and the one who takes. It is only when both partners move from the 'asking' polarity to the 'giving' polarity of love that you can move beyond pain.
Q: To fall in love with a master is also a kind of 'falling'?
Yes and no.
Ordinary 'falling in love' is an obsession with form. With the master, this is only a preliminary step towards moving beyond the form. Normally, when you fall in love, you 'fall' in a lot of ways because possessiveness, jealousy, domination and anger are sure to follow. Lovers play subtle games of hide-and-seek with each other. Though each needs the other to make them feel complete, the ego also resents the power of the other over itself. This resentment expresses itself as covert physical or psychological violence on the other. With the master, the same love and the same fear exist - but there are no halfway points. You have to fall completely - fall from the head and fall from the heart! The master offers total love and demands total surrender. Love and surrender both mean the sure death of the ego.
When you come to the master, you cannot play the games of deceit and domination that are so essential to keep your ego alive. This is the ultimate test for your ego; there is no running away. You have to choose, once and for all, between love and fear.
If you welcome the master into your being with total love and trust, the flame of the master's presence can simply burn your ego and transform your being. In the master's hands, you experience a new birth. That is why falling in love with the master always results in a tremendous upward surge. You may fall in love with me - but I will never let you stay fallen. I will ensure that you rise in love instead!
"Why do you so often find your questions dissolving in my presence?"
UNCOMMON ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS
Follow Me IN!
Because, when you are with me, you become so intensely aware, so totally present, that there is no space for questions to arise! After all, what are questions, but the imposition of the past and the future upon the present? That is why so many of your doubts disappear when you are with me. And that is what I am here for: not to solve your problems, but to dissolve them!